But she did not stay. He folded only moonlight, in which there is little
substance for a strong man, even in Wyoming. Dr. Slavens sighed as the
tent-flap dropped behind her.

"Yes; that's what I've needed all the time," said he.

He sat outside with his pipe, which never had seemed so sweet. But, for
all of its solace, he was disturbed by the thought that perhaps he had
made a blunder which had placed him in a false light with Miss
Horton--only he thought of her as Agnes, just as if he had the right.
For there were only occasions on which Dr. Slavens admitted himself to
be a fizzle in the big fireworks of the world. That was a charge which
he sometimes laid to himself in mortification of spirit, or as a
flagellant to spur him along the hard road. He had not meant to let it
slip him aloud over there by the river, because he didn't believe it at
all--at least not in that high-hoping hour.

So he sat there in the moonlight before the tent, the noises of the town
swelling louder and louder as the night grew older, his big frame
doubled into the stingy lap of a canvas chair, his knees almost as high
as his chin. But it was comfortable, and his tobacco was as pleasant to
his senses as the distillation of youthful dreams.

He had not attained the automobile stage of prosperity and arrogance,
certainly. But that was somewhere ahead; he should come to it in time.
Out of the smoke of his pipe that dreamy night he could see it. Perhaps
he might be a little gray at the temples when he came to it, and a
little lined at the mouth, but there would be more need of it then than
now, because his legs would tire more easily.

But Agnes had taken that foolishly blurted statement for truth. So
it was his job henceforward to prove to Agnes that he was not bankrupt
in courage. And he meant to do it he vowed, even if he had to get a
tent and hang out his shingle in Comanche. That would take nerve
unquestionably, for there were five doctors in the place already, none
of them making enough to buy stamps to write back home for money.

Already, he said, he was out of the rut of his despondency; already the
rust was knocked off his back, and the eagerness to crowd up to the
starting-line was on him as fresh again as on the day when he had walked
away from all competitors in the examination for a license before the
state board.

At midnight the others came back from the dance and broke the trend of
his smoke-born dreams. Midnight was the hou